Donald
Trump’s foreign policy relies heavily on putting to use to the tools available
to the Empire: economic terrorism, threats of war, diplomatic pressure, trade wars, etc. But in resorting to
tried-and-true imperialism, it is isolating itself internationally
from traditional allies and raising tensions on the global chessboard to an
unprecedented level.
Threats
of war against Venezuela, North Korea, Syria and Iran are now repeated on a
daily basis. Economic measures involving tariffs or duties, in
many ways comparable to declarations of war, are
now habitual, whether directed at friends or allies. Iran and Syria are under
sanctions, while Pyongyang is even prevented from docking one of its
ships in its ports, thereby finding itself de facto placed under US embargo,
such as was threatened against Venezuela.
China and
Russia are daily fighting to support the multipolar world through diplomatic,
economic and sometimes military means, offering to Washington’s enemies some
kind of shield with which to withstand the outrageous slings and arrows of the
Trump administration. Beijing and Moscow carry out their resistance with an eye
to their long-term objectives, given that in the short term their actions will
inevitably invite the implacable hostility of Washington and her lackeys.
The fate
of the new multipolar world order essentially depends on how well China and
Russia will be able weather Washington’s storm. It is naturally in the
interests of the rest of the world that the chaos of Washington’s unipolarity
will be brought to a close in the least chaotic and destructive manner.
Washington’s
European allies are sanctioned for Iranian oil imports, are unable to
participate in the reconstruction of Syria, are asked to abandon joint projects
with Russia (Nord Stream II), are asked to cut technological imports from
China, are requested not to become involved in the largest project the world
has ever known, known as the Belt And Road Initiative (BRI) – all these
requests come at a time when Donald Trump keeps undermining the international
globalist order on which US allies have come to rely on to maintain the status
quo. US allies are obliged to comply with Washington’s requests even as it
hurts their business interests and poses grave consequences in the medium to
long term. This is essentially the motivation behind European countries seeking
to diversify their international trade and exchanges through a currency not
controlled by Washington, thereby effectively de-dollarizing their economies.
It will be quite some time before such an ideal can be realized, demonstrated
by the failure of the
efforts to import Iranian oil by circumventing the US embargo through such
mechanisms as Instex.
Recent
weeks have seen international affairs swing from one worrying scenario to
another, from the failed summit between
Trump and Kim, to the support for Guaido’s attempted coup in
Venezuela, culminating in the continuous threats directed towards Iran after
designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.
With
little rhyme or reason, with an administration divided among several factions, we see
constant changes in strategy and approach that only end up weakening
Washington’s international stature.
Military
planners at the Pentagon fear an open
conflict with Iran or Venezuela, but only for purely propagandistic reasons.
Washington’s formidable firepower would probably be able to overwhelm whatever
defenses Tehran or Caracaswould be able to
offer, but at what price? The site
of Washington’s latest-generation aircraft falling from the sky at the hands
of air-defense systems from
the Soviet period would have a devastating effect on the image America’s
military-industrial complex likes to project of itself.
It would
damage the prestige of American systems, which cost considerably more than
their Russian counterparts. (An American F-22 Raptor, for example, costs about
$150 million, whereas a Russian Su-35 only costs about $55 million.)
This embarrassing reality is
currently being highlighted in Syria to some degree, where the anti-aircraft
defenses of Damascus, combined with Russian capabilities, have foiled dozens of
Israeli, US and Saudi attacks. The hitherto venerable US cruise missiles have
had to genuflect before the legendary S-300/S-400 systems that have now become
(as a defensive and not offensive weapon) a symbol of peace.
The myth
of the invincibility of US weapons is being challenged by Moscow’s defensive
capabilities deployed in Syria and Venezuela. These same capabilities are
readily available to Tehran in the event that Washington decides to attack the
Persian country. But the likelihood of such a war becomes less and less likely
with every passing day, with Pentagon military planners fearing a far worse
scenario for the United States than Iraq. Iran is three times the
size of Iraq and would require about 1.2 million US troops to occupy the
country on a permanent basis.
Iran,
moreover, is one of the top 15 world powers and Washington would be confronted
for the first time with an opponent of high capabilities, something that
Americans have been trying to avoid for decades,
fearful of revealing the vulnerability of their weapons systems as a result of
corruption and wrong strategic decisions. Hollywood movies have served to build
up in the public mind the myth of US military prowess, being a form of extreme
propaganda for the purposes of disguising the reality of military
ineffectiveness.
Pentagon
planners have no intention of revealing their military vulnerabilities in a war
with Iran. The loss of US military prestige would also show to countries
hitherto under Washington’s thumb that this dog has more bark than bite, making
it all the more difficult for the US to browbeat countries with the threat of
military force in the future.
What
Trump seems to find difficult to understand is that his foreign policy is
slowly eroding the superpower status of
the US. The free pass Trump has
given to the neocons and the pro-Israel and pro-Saudi lobbies have only served
to bring the US the the brink of a new war with Venezuela, the DPRK, Iran or
Syria. With Trump not really committed to any war himself,
this will only lead to a humiliating backdown.
A
commitment to no further wars seems to be one of the last election promises
Trump wants to remain faithful to.
These
continuous threats, never followed up by real actions, are a very short-lived
tactic, given that they do not bear any strategic result. The DPRK did not get
rid of its nukes, Venezuela still has Maduro as president, and Iran will never
sit down with the US to discuss a new nuclear deal.
International
attitudes are cooling towards the US, even among allies, who are subjected to
absurd impositions on imported goods and punitive measures resulting from
industrial cooperation with Russia, China and Iran (the three main opponents of
the Israeli-Neocon-Saudi triad). Threats to Germany for the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline
are not dissimilar to the threats to Turkey for seeking to acquire the S-400, or to Italy for
accepting Huawei 5G technology,
or to India for importing Iranian oil.
Opponents
of Washington share a lot in common and are increasingly coordinating their
efforts economically, diplomatically and militarily to limit the chaos and
damage brought on by the Trump administration’s rampage on the global stage.
The
doctrine of America First, combined
with the need to grant a free hand to the Israeli-Saudi neocons, has been
disastrous, particularly to the US. The rest of the world watches with mounting
amazement and wonder how Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv are determined to
paint themselves into a corner, just so that they can satisfy particular
lobbies, powerful factions and warmongers like Bolton, Netanyahu, Mohammed bin
Salman and Pompeo.
Trump is
able to deceive his base due to their lack of interest in international
affairs, the failing Democratic party, and Fox News’ tricky propaganda. But
internationally, the role of Washington is becoming less and less relevant,
with the figure of Trump serving to unite both friends and enemies of the US
alike in a type of temporary pact as they wait out the Trump presidency. Once
Trump is out of the way, then issues of fundamental importance for world trade
(the Belt and Road Initiative) and the stability of crucial areas like the
Middle East and North Africa can be dealt with, even though US adversaries are
fully aware that US foreign policy isn’t decided by the President of the United
States, rather from the ‘Washington consensus’
driven by ‘US Exceptionalism’.